Power Minister Promotes Sodium-Ion Batteries To Ramp-Up EV Adoption

New Delhi, Oct 17 (KNN) Owing to limited lithium resources, manufacturers needs to shift away to other chemistries such as sodium-ion in order to increase the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the country, said Power Minister RK Singh on Monday.

Speaking after launching the EV-Ready India Dashboard, developed by OMI Foundation, the Minister said EV adoption will further gain traction as the price of battery storage comes down.

He pointed out that the other hurdle for adoption of EVs is lithium resources. “Eighty per cent of lithium reserves are tied up by one country, and 88 per cent of lithium processing is located in one country. Supply chain issues have now come to the forefront. What needs to be done is to shift away from lithium to other chemistries such as sodium ion. Alternative chemistries are absolutely essential for security of supply chain,” he added.

He encouraged the industry to invest in research in alternative chemistries.

“The future is electric. Nobody can stop this. The price of storage will come down, and once that comes down, diesel and petrol SUVs will be history. We will have electric, which suits our journey as one of the largest economies of the world,” he said.

The EV-Ready India Dashboard is the only dashboard in the country that compiles sales data across all Vahan States and Telangana, along with a direct view into the state of charging infrastructure, demand trends and comparisons of total cost of ownership, making it useful for the EV buyers as well.

Additionally, it tracks the current investment climate for EVs, and forecasts on market growth and EV hotspots for the country. It further measures emissions avoided, aiming to accelerate India’s journey to Net Zero.

The dashboard estimates over 1.6 crore annual EV deployments in India by 2030.

“With this, it also cites Maharashtra and Delhi operating with the highest number of charging stations in India (2,531 and 1,815 respectively). Tamil Nadu emerges as the E2W manufacturing hub of the country, Telangana leads in E3W manufacturing, Maharashtra in E4W manufacturing, Gujarat in battery manufacturing, and Karnataka in R&D,” OMI Foundation said.

(KNN Bureau)